Turn 1 faithless looting using
Simian Spirit Guide
and then land and another simian for goryos vengeance on griselbrand. Griselbrand hits for 7 and you're at 27 life. Now you can draw 21 cards and youre at 6 life. Lets say in those 21 cards you got a fury of the horde, you can attack for another 7, opponent is now at 6 life. Then guess what? Since griselbrand has lifelink you can draw another 7. Oh damn maybe you didnt hit fury of the horde but you hit nourishing shoal. Exile chancellor to gain another 7 life so you can draw 7 more cards. Then you still brick. But you have a soul spike! Soul spike them down to 2, you go to 10, and guess what? 7 more cards. In this example, Griselbrand has drawn you 42 cards, and if you include your opening hand youve drawn 29 cards (51 with faithless looting). And dont forget you get to cast faithless looting by exiling simian spirit guides as well.

TLDR: You can draw your whole deck because Griselbrand... has lifelink! (Works well with our extra combat steps)

9 months ago

I agree with RedmundR2 in general. The concept of this deck is not something you're going to be able to create competitively in modern. I truly believe you should play with what you love, and if that is casual then by all means continue. The deck still seems fun. However, there is a deck that may be similar that you can play competitively in modern.

One of my favorite combo decks in modern: Grishoalbrand (from Griselbrand and Nourishing Shoal). Seeing as you did not know about the legality of some cards I'm going to assume you are somewhat new to Magic. Disclaimer, this deck is NOT something you can just simply pick up and win at your local FNM. It does require a little bit more knowledge of the rules as well as competitive level thinking. However, if that is a route you want to, start with the deck you want to learn and keep playing until you've figured it out. This deck as many similar concepts to the deck you're trying to build. Also, this is simply one primer. There are more if this one doesn't "click" to you.

In saying all of that, if you want to get this deck more tuned to modern you will need to remove the illegal cards which I see you have taken most out. Pattern of Rebirth and Wild Mongrel NOT modern legal, and Golgari Grave-Troll is specifically banned. Before I continue with suggestions Karnival, are you willing to explore other colors? How competitive do you want to be, if at all? Do you have a budget I will need to remember for suggestions?

I've said this multiple times, sorry to say it again. Play with what you like. If you're more of a casual player with friends, this deck is fine. If you want to try and start competing at modern FNMs, I'm sure we could help try to find tune your deck (with whatever concepts you want to keep). If you want to truly start getting competitive, let us know. We can offer multiple decks that you might like to start and try.

9 months ago

Went and traded in a Primal Vigor and a Tempt with Discovery -im strapped for disposable income- to get a couple of packs of ultimate masters. A gamble i know but I figured with all the value in the set I would pull something decent. Well what happened was i pulled a Talrand, Sky Summoner and a Nourishing Shoal as my rares. Didn't even get a mentionable uncommon. I think i teared up.

9 months ago

The name probably gets you right to it, Sunbird's Invocation and Nourishing Shoal. Your typical Arbor Elf/Utopia Sprawl/Overgrowth ramp package combined with a topend filled with Ghalta, Primal Hungers and Eldrazi, with extra value and maybe an instant-speed Emrakul, the Aeons Torn off an exiled Autochthon Wurm. Thoughts? SI has been dismissed as a 6-mana do-nothing enchantment but it seems incredibly potent if you can get immediate value out of high-cmc, low-cost stuff via Delve and the white or green shoals. Summoner's Pact for consistency. I haven't found much discussion of this kind online, and I was thinking of trying to put it together. It seems like jumping through less hoops than Grishoalbrand, and splashing blue for protection and Jace, the Mind Sculptor for a backup win, digging power, and getting your topend out of your hand and right into a juicy Sunbird's Invocation.

Am I sitting squarely in Christmas Dreamland or is this one of those 'just crazy enough it might even work' deals? SI saw a bit of play with Approach of the Second Sun but has never been all that great at a competitive level, but this genuinely seems like it could break it. I've watched a fair bit of modern but never played it, and I was thinking this would be a fun (albeit costly) way to get into it. Thoughts?

Yes, if you exile a 15 cmc card to Nourishing Shoal, it's cmc is 17 on the stack and for the purposes of SI.

10 months ago

Griselbrand is insanely good. In modern, the idea behind griselcannongriselcannon decks is that yes, while they are a glass cannon build, they are stupid fast.

The ability to pay life to draw cards is super good - especially when the deck is built around cards like Chancellor of the Tangle and Nourishing Shoal to gain back chunks of life. From there, you can use him in conjunction with his life gain) to chain together extra combat phases.

I think this is something that quite a few players forget, there is no different between winning on two life as there is on twenty life. And often being able to trade life for resources will end up giving you the upper hand. Griselbrand embodies this. Risk/reward profiles and all that.

Combo 3: Vs Graveyard hate you'll find yourself trying to go into late game and casting Through the Breach + Griselbrand on your oppoenent's end step (preferably) this allows us to keep Griselbrand until OUR end step so we can combo with all our mana up and ready to be used.

1 year ago

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